Smith Westerns will release their sophomore LP, Dye It Blonde, on Fat Possum on Jan. 18. That night they will kick off a tour in Brooklyn that will stretch across the country and span nearly three months. It will conclude in Austin in March for SXSW. The band will be performing here at the Empty Bottle on Feb. 26th. They have shared another track off of their much anticipated album called "All Die Young"

They're back! The electro-dance band known as Walter Meego is back with a new line-up, in a new city, and with a new full-length album. The Chicago-natives, now living in LA, released their debut album Voyager back in 2008 through Sony's Almost Gold label. At the time the band consisted on Justin Sconza (guitar, keyboards and vocals) and Pat Pelligrini and Colin Yarck on production. After Sconza relocated he reformed the band and filled out the sound with Andrew Adzemovic (guitar, vocals), Duncan Thum (vocals, keyboards), Simon Smith (bass), and Tyler Sabbag (drums).

The result is a self-released ten track album called Wondervalley. The result is a bigger sound filled with synth,'80's pop sounds, and varied of new textures and experiments. Through out the ten tracks you can see how the addition of more live instrumentation, and music perspectives has changed the dynamics, but Sconza's love of synth-pop is still at the core of Walter Meego's sound. My favorite track from the album is perhaps the most out of character, "From California". It's an echoing ballad that documents Sconza's journey from Chicago to his new sunny home. You can stream the album through the band's website.

First, we would like to thank all of the bands that submitted to our year-end poll through Sonic Bids. We had a ton of great submission, and it was challenging to narrow the field down. The top three selections from Sonic Bids are Secret Colours, Sad Brad Smith and The Giving Tree Band.

Speaking of Secret Colours, the bands released a new digital single today called "Follow The Drone". The band will be performing on Jan. 8th at Subt with Apteka and We Are Hex.

On January 1st, Netherfriends released a new free digital ep called Alap. Alap is a term used in Indian classical music for a sectin that is improvised and free flowing. The EP contains seven tracks, one for each day of the week. Accompanying videos are being created by the minds behind the Lateral Label, who released Netherfriends' debut LP Barry and Sherry. They have already released videos for "Saturday" (below), "Sunday" and "Monday".

Netherfriends will be performing his last Chicago show until May tomorrow, January 6th at Subt with The Loneliest Monk, Dozens, and Wolf in a Spacesuit.